Shriver: "If Barack Obama was a state, he'd be California"

LOS ANGELES - It was quite a pregame show.

About 380 miles from the Super Bowl and beneath the championship banners of a dynastic college basketball team, thousands came to see a meeting of Barack Obama's three most powerful women surrogates -- Oprah Winfrey, Caroline Kennedy and Michelle Obama. But joining them was a surprise guest, CA first lady Maria Shriver, who offered another critical endorsement in the run up to Super Tuesday.

"The more I thought about it, I thought you know if Barack Obama was a state, he'd be California," Shriver said to fierce applause. "I mean, think about it - diverse, open, smart, independent, bucks tradition, innovative, inspiring, dreamer, leader. And the thing I like the best ... he's not about himself. He's about us."

Shriver's entrance on stage drove the crowd in Pauley Pavilion on UCLA campus into a frenzy. A campaign source said that Shriver has supported Obama for some time, but felt now was the time to do so publicly. Shriver said she decided only this morning to come to the rally, joking that was why she was "attired" as she was and without makeup.

"We're at the epicenter of change," she said. "We can lead this country. ... So I would ask you to go out to follow your heart, to be proud that you're doing that, and to remember that so goes California, so goes the nation."

To think that even Oprah Winfrey could be upstaged was just as much a surprise as Shriver's appearance itself. Winfrey was introduced by another member of the Kennedy family, Caroline, who said they were both women who had been reluctant to step out on the political stage.

Winfrey, who first joined Obama on the stump in December, gave a passionate explanation of her endorsement, which came a month before the Iowa caucuses, answering critics who she said accused her of being a "traitor" for supporting Obama.

"Every part of me believes of the empowerment of women, but the truth is I'm a free woman," she said. "And being free means you get to think for yourself. And you get to decide for yourself what you get to do. So I say I am not a traitor. No, I'm not a traitor I'm just following my own truth and that truth has led me to Barack Obama."

(NBC/NJ's MIKE MEMOLI)

She also challenged those who say she only supports Obama because he is black. "That too was insulting for me," she said. "I would never vote for someone because of gender ... I'm not voting for Barack Obama because he's black, I'm voting for Barack Obama because he's brilliant."

Michelle Obama actually spoke the longest, saying that America "has lost its way," and the way back "begins with inspiration." "It begins with leadership that can make us look differently at ourselves and one another," she said. "So I am here right now because I am married to the only person in this race who has a chance of healing this nation."

It was an event clearly aimed at women. After all, who else would come out just hours before the biggest sporting spectacle in America each year? But, as Winfrey joked, "It's Super Bowl Sunday, and we know who's doing all the work for these parties."